LIHU‘E — The Kaua‘i Office of the Prosecuting Attorney has big plans to reshape how justice is carried out on island. During a budget presentation Tuesday for the 2012 fiscal year, Prosecuting Attorney Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho rolled out her plans for
LIHU‘E — The Kaua‘i Office of the Prosecuting Attorney has big plans to reshape how justice is carried out on island.
During a budget presentation Tuesday for the 2012 fiscal year, Prosecuting Attorney Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho rolled out her plans for a restorative justice program, known as “Project P.O.H.A.K.U.,” that would divert certain misdemeanor and petty misdemeanor cases from the court to the community.
Essentially, first-time, non-violent offenders facing minor charges would do community service — instead of time — in the communities they caused harm.
Considering that 20,000 misdemeanor cases are typically heard in district court each year, with defendants appearing for up to five hearings, such a diversion program could ease the load for OPA’s overworked staff, Second Deputy Prosecutor Lauren McDowell said.
“It’s basically a second chance,” Iseri-Carvalho said. “We’re here to make things better.”
To do that, she said, the OPA requires another prosecutor funded by the county, in addition to one promised by the mayor. The extra attorney would head up P.O.H.A.K.U. and pick up some extra trial work. P.O.H.A.K.U., an acronym for Productive Optimism Helps All Kaua‘i Unite, is expected to be introduced in May of this year.
While many of the council members praised Iseri-Carvalho and OPA for its successes — high conviction rates, partnerships with the Kaua‘i Police Department and other law enforcement, and the introduction of the new diversion program — some questioned the attorneys more closely about the office’s statistics, funding sources, the necessity of having an attorney operate P.O.H.A.K.U., and about the turnover rate for prosecutors.
Iseri-Carvalho said she may have hired 13 individuals since she took office in 2008 but would need to get back to the council.
Councilman Tim Bynum asked her to indicate how many attorneys have left her office during her tenure and whether they resigned or were terminated. Iseri-Carvalho said she could not answer that as it is a personnel issue. But Council Chair Jay Furfaro urged her to say how many she has hired.
“If we want to know the number of attorneys that you turned over, please give us those numbers,” Furfaro said. “If you give us statistics about the rationale and so forth, that is your jurisdiction, not ours.”
Bynum said Wednesday that the question is appropriate when a department or office is asking for new positions.
“There has been a large turnover of prosecuting attorneys,” Bynum said. “I think it’s accurate to say that the team she started with — all but one of them is no longer there.
“That’s part of what I wanted to have a better understanding of.”
First Deputy Prosecutor Jake Delaplane said the OPA will not discuss how people have left the office.
“Our position is that personnel information is confidential,” he said. “We can’t do it.”
During the nearly four-hour session, which included an 89-slide presentation and a 26-page narrative, Iseri-Carvalho shared the microphone with McDowell and Delaplane, as they aired the woes of the office. According to the three attorneys, OPA is drowning in old case files that it must maintain — and eventually redact personal information from under the Hawai‘i Supreme Court’s Rule 9 — and is understaffed with an increasing caseload.
“We have an extremely hard-working, committed, passionate staff,” Iseri-Carvalho said. “They come to work loving their job. They work extremely hard; it’s very tiresome hours. There is voluminous amounts of work but they are a dedicated group of people.”
An OPA budget presentation document shows that according to a Judiciary 2010 Annual Report, district court criminal cases have increased 35 percent, from 6,595 in 2007-08 to 8,885 in 2009-10; juvenile cases have jumped 165 percent from 1,651 in the first set of years to 4,387 in 2009-10; and felony cases increased by 54 percent with 1,059 cases in 2007-2008 to 1,636 in the last two years.
Iseri-Carvalho attributed the jump in crime to the economic downturn.
“Whenever the economy goes down, you will see a (spike) in the cases,” she said. “Definitely, the economy plays a huge role.
“People are hungry, people are stealing food.”
She added that crimes are becoming more complex and pernicious, with car break-ins occurring outside of people’s homes and burglaries in occupied hotel rooms, abuse of prescription drugs, cyberbullying, sexting and white collar crimes involving the theft of thousands of dollars.
“Times are changing,” Iseri-Carvalho said.
To help deal with the issue of file storage, Delaplane said the office is hoping to implement a $100,000 electronic case management program that would allow the office to scan and store its paper files. OPA is required to retain closed and completed case files for a certain number of years. More serious crimes, such as murder, must be kept in perpetuity.
“We’re basically drowning in our own files,” he told the council.
He added that the system would allow OPA to electronically black out personal information in court filings that the Supreme Court says must be redacted. The office plans to use New Dawn Technologies case management software, which is use by the Maui OPA and the Hawai‘i attorney general.
All this, plus funding prosecutor positions no longer supported by decreased or cut federal and state grants, lead to a total budget request of $3.67 million for FY12, which starts July 1.
“We took a big hit,” the attorneys said.
The mayor’s proposed operating budget for FY12 requests $3.51 million for the prosecutor’s office. The original budget for the current fiscal year is $2.33 million with an adjusted budget of $2.62 million.
Iseri-Carvalho asked that the county pay for 10.5 prosecutor positions. According to a comparison in the presentation, the county funded 6.5 prosecutors for this fiscal year, versus 27 for Hawai‘i County and 29 for Maui County. However, Kaua‘i represents 5 percent of the state’s population, Hawai‘i has 14, and Maui carries 11 percent.
“We don’t think that’s an unreasonable request,” Delaplane said. “We’re just asking for parity.”
They noted that the mayor has already committed to funding a law clerk and senior clerk, in addition to the extra prosecutor position.
Councilman Kipukai Kuali‘i said it’s the county’s responsibility to provide public safety.
Bynum said that the council is awaiting an analysis from the finance director about those requests, and Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura was right to ask for more complete statistics regarding funding and comparisons with OPA offices on other islands.
“She is asking for very significant additional expenditures from the council and I haven’t made any conclusions about that,” he said.
• Jessica Musicar, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or by e-mailing jmusicar@ thegardenisland.com.
